


A Thousand Words

by Shoshanna Gold (shoshannagold)



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-08
Updated: 2009-11-08
Packaged: 2017-10-06 14:35:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shoshannagold/pseuds/Shoshanna%20Gold
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The truth is out there. Maybe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Thousand Words

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work of fiction based on characters in the HBO miniseries.
> 
> This story was inspired by an episode of _The Unit_, 'The Outsiders' (2x19). Thanks to [](http://oxoniensis.livejournal.com/profile)[**oxoniensis**](http://oxoniensis.livejournal.com/) for the fabulous beta and gorgeous cover art and to [](http://nightanddaze.livejournal.com/profile)[**nightanddaze**](http://nightanddaze.livejournal.com/) and [](http://mydocuments.livejournal.com/profile)[**mydocuments**](http://mydocuments.livejournal.com/) for their insight.

  
[   
](http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v142/shoshannagold/Story%20Covers/?action=view&current=shoshannagold-athousandwords.jpg)   


Nate leans against the brick wall outside the library at Georgetown and lights a cigarette, drawing deeply on it. He doesn't smoke often – it's just about marathon season, and this year he wants to place in the top three hundred in the MCM – but he likes to do it before he gives a talk. He can focus on the inhale and exhale, the warmth inside his lungs, the acrid taste that reminds him a little of the smell of gunpowder. He and Mike would smoke at night in their truck, passing a butt back and forth in silent communion.

Smoking reminds him why he's going to stand up in front of two hundred law students for an hour and try to make them understand that the world isn't anything close to black and white, that they can write all the papers they want about international law, it still doesn't fucking exist.

A man in a black pea coat with a red scarf wrapped around his neck comes up to where Nate's standing. Maybe a professor, but he could just be an older student; grad students blur the age demographics, as Nate well knows. The man is carrying a satchel strapped around his chest, and Nate readily identifies him as a civilian. It's his stance, maybe the way he's holding his shoulders. Men and women who have never served hold themselves differently, something Nate hadn't learned to see until he was a Marine himself. It didn't matter if you'd only done one tour, twenty years ago: something about you was changed forever. The man nods at him and smiles, a bit ruefully. "Mind if I bum a smoke?"

Nate nods and hands him the pack without saying anything. The man pulls out a cigarette and the little lighter Nate keeps tucked inside the package. "Thanks."

"No problem." Nate prefers to be alone before a speech, but if he really needed it, he could have hung out in the small office they set aside for visiting speakers. Right now he needs this more: the feel of the cigarette between his fingers, the chill air crisp against his skin, the sun bright against the stark white walls of the building across the street. It reminds him of Greece, that whitewashing that makes everything cooler on blazing summer days.

His companion seems to share his contemplative mood, handing back the pack of Marlboros with another nod, lighting up without saying anything. He leans on the wall beside Nate, the ashtray put up by the college between them, and for a few minutes it's quiet again. Nate finishes his first cigarette and contemplates a second. He pulls out the pack and that motion seems to remind the other guy he's there; he looks over at Nate.

"You're Nate Fick, right?"

So fucking much for companionable silence. He's become more used to being recognized, to strangers coming up to him and knowing his name. His book, Evan's book, the roundtables on CNN. He is living a public life in the US, and there are advantages to the exposure that he exploits, too. He flicks his lighter and draws deeply on his cigarette so the tobacco will catch. After he exhales, he nods and says, "Yes, I am."

"Mark Reynolds, Chicago Sun-Times."

Nate raises his eyebrows. "You've come a long way for a talk that I'm going to be giving at Loyola in a month."

"I'm actually hoping you have time for a quick interview now. I'm writing about some issues that are germane to your interests, and I'm on deadline."

Nate isn't sure what the guy's angle is, but he knows this isn't about the talk today. "My publicist is the one you want to talk to," he says, giving the reporter an easy smile. Be charming, be polite, and give them nothing until they go through proper channels. He took a lot more from OCS than how to kill a man with a single bullet from 200 yards. Seven years since he received his first commission and he knows he still wears all those lessons like body armor.

Reynolds shakes his head. "I don't think you want me to talk to your publicist," he says, pulling out a piece of paper from his satchel. He passes it to Nate. It's a picture.

It's a picture of Brad, Nate beside him. They're running on the beach at La Jolla, eight days ago.

*

Trying to keep Brad still was like trying to stop a volcano from erupting or a tsunami from flooding small Pacific islands. Nate had never claimed to be more than mortal. He left that to his boyfriend.

Brad had wanted to go surfing. Salt water would be hell on Brad's wounds, especially the burn high on the back of his neck that wouldn't be covered by his wetsuit. Nate had bartered him down to a run on the beach; sexual favors and the threat of calling Brad's mom made good leverage.

To Nate's surprise, the run had been a good idea. He'd brought work with him to California, but he couldn't settle down to it. The beach house felt hushed, despite the crashing of the surf, the cries of the gulls that swept down on the beach. Nate had spent last summer there, working on his public policy thesis, and Brad had been there some of the time; Nate was used to Brad's video games in the background, the sound of him on the phone shooting the shit with Ray. But for the past few days, it had been so quiet Nate could hear his own steps when he paced, Brad sleeping almost around the clock as his body healed.

Every stride he took as he matched his pace to Brad's loosened the knot deep in his gut, until his anxiety dissipated. Brad was beside him, and though his flesh was abraded with wounds and minor burns that would scar, he was still intact and alive.

Brad was pacing himself, too. Maybe it was just enough for him to be outside, to breath in the fresh salt air that was nothing like the oppressive aridity of the desert. He glanced at Nate and grinned. "Nice to run for fun, not because the fucking Army is going to leave me high and dry in the desert if I fuck up their schedule." It was the first time since he'd come home that he'd even referred to the mission that he'd been on, and a jolt of relief shot through Nate. He knew better than to ask, wouldn't compromise Brad like that. At the same time, Brad shouldn't hold it all in; the official debriefing wouldn't have been any kind of outlet and he knew Brad too well to think that he'd talk about his own combat stress with the men who were there with him, not while he's still their leader.

*

The photo was taken by somebody using a long-range lens: the scene is framed the same way a kill shot looks from a sniper's scope.

Nate looks at it for no more than five seconds and then hands the picture back. "I take my own vacation photos, thanks," he says, shrugging. "But it was nice of you to think of me."

"That's Brad Colbert you're with," says Reynolds, pausing to take a hit off his smoke. "Staff Sergeant Brad Colbert, First Marine Battalion, Camp Pendleton. He's only been back on active duty in the States for about a year: after IOF he went on an exchange with the British Royal Marines." Reynolds smirked. "But I'm not telling you anything you don't know, am I, Captain Fick? Clearly you're well-acquainted with Colbert's service record."

The Marine Corps taught Nate how to release his breath with the bullet, how to climb up a wall of sheer rock with a rope and two hand spikes, how to land mortars within a foot of his target. It also taught him that the only real way to resist interrogation was to offer nothing at all. Mark Reynolds is clearly hoping to disarm Nate with innuendo and implications, but it doesn't matter what cards he plays. Nate won't lose this game. He draws on his cigarette. Three more pulls and he will be done.

"A week before that picture was taken there was an explosion on the border between Iran and Iraq. Three Iranian soldiers died. Iranian media reports claim that there was no explosion at all, and that their soldiers died in a training accident. The Americans aren't saying anything at all, even though there was a convoy not even two miles away, patrolling the border. And your friend here – " he exhales smoke as he drawls the word 'friend' like it's a private joke between them – "Your friend, Staff Sergeant Colbert, flew out of Kirkuk with three other Recon Marines twenty-two hours later, on a military transport plane. Which is interesting, don't you think, because not one of those Marines is reported as being in Iraq within the last three months. Records show, in fact, that they were all at Pendleton, training new recruits. There are no pictures to back up that claim, but why take photos of a routine training exercise, right?"

Nate doesn't say anything.

"But I do have a picture of this. It's time-stamped; as you can see, it was taken roughly three days after the explosion on the border." Reynolds reaches into his pocket and pulls out another picture. Nate takes it from him, another five-second glance. Brad's on the tarmac, boarding a plane. Hasser's in front of him, Fawcett and Garza behind him. All of the men are sporting bandages, and Walt's left arm is in a sling.

*

They'd taken a shower after their run. Well, Nate had showered and then he'd washed Brad, using the hand held shower and a wash-cloth, very carefully not getting any of his bandages or wounds wet.

There was no way to connect the beach house to Brad – his father's corporation held the title, some kind of tax shelter. Still, Brad had checked for listening devices when they'd come home from their run, and it was only in the bathroom, with the hot tub jets swirling and three shower heads pulsing at full pressure, creating a wall of white noise, that Brad told Nate about the mission.

He'd been vague on locations and used code words that Nate had memorized years before which had long since been replaced. Brad's team had been on a black op ten klicks inside Iranian territory to determine if an old Bedouin trail was being used to smuggle weapons to Iraqi insurgents. Forty-eight hours of observation had confirmed those suspicions. They were supposed to meet up with the Army convoy that patrolled the border nightly. Their extraction point was right on the border, where they were supposed to rendezvous with an Army convoy that patrolled American lines hourly.

Three klicks from the border, they'd run into trouble: a skirmish between the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Bedouin rebel forces. Brad's team had remained undetected, but while they were unseen by combatants, they were hit with shrapnel from an IED planted inside one of the camels that exploded just as the shooting started.

Nate sat on the floor of the shower, hot water pelting down around him, and listened to Brad. He couldn't stop touching him as Brad told him how they'd sewn up cuts with hasty field stitches and slapped on burn cream; how Walt's lips were bloody from biting down on them to hold back his shouts as Gabe held him down and Brad and Damon pulled chunks of metal out of his side.

The team missed the first extraction window but made it to the second, was cas-evaced by helicopter to Camp Renegade's field hospital, and after being tended to by doctors there, boarded a plane from Kirkuk to Pendleton. Total time in-country was 83 hours, which was 16 hours longer than the mission had been allotted, and the team had contact with several medical personnel, some of whom had to be granted emergency security clearance to treat the Marines. The mission wasn't a failure – the intel was secure – but it had been decidedly compromised.

*

There is nothing unusual about the photo Nate is holding, except press aren't allowed anywhere near an airfield on an American base in northern Iraq. The picture was clearly taken with a cell phone camera. Like the first picture, it has a date-stamp on the bottom.

"I thought the picture of the plane would be my smoking gun. It's flying with American insignia and Pendleton tail codes. But it's a ghost ship; not only are there no flight plans filed anywhere, the goddamn plane doesn't officially exist. Camp Pendleton officials are telling me there's no such aircraft, and the Pentagon has no record of it." Reynolds draws down on his cigarette, clearly frustrated.

"Even more mysterious is that there is no flight logged flying out of Kirkuk at that time. Not for two hours before then, or after. Nor is there a flight logged into Camp Pendleton sixteen hours later, yet one landed. I have a picture of that, too, but not with me." He shrugs, and Nate thinks that he didn't bring the picture because it would reveal something about the Marine who took the shot.

"It doesn't matter if you see the picture or not. You know that plane landed. You know that because you met it, Captain Fick." He looks at Nate intently. "Three hours after your own flight landed at John Wayne airport, sixteen hours after you gave a speech in West Virginia, a day before you cancelled an appearance on _The Situation Room_."

Nate keeps his expression mildly interested as he takes the third photograph. Like the first one, this was taken with a long-range lens. In it, Nate's driving away from Pendleton, Brad in the passenger seat beside him, a bandage across his cheek. He looks exhausted. Nate himself looks worried. The time-stamp on the photo is exactly when Nate remembers leaving.

*

Huntington's Tri-State airport claimed to have wireless internet, but after the third time Nate was booted off, he gave up and pulled out his book instead. His publicist had warned him that West Virginia might not have the amenities he was used to, but Nate wasn't going to turn down invitations to the southern colleges because he might not be able to check his email for an hour or two. His definition of 'roughing it' was vastly different than Stacy's, who he suspected hadn't set foot off Manhattan since sometime in the mid-nineties.

His cell phone rang just as he reached in his bag for his book. The caller id was for a Camp Pendleton number and Nate grinned. He hadn't talked to Brad in a couple of days, and what better way to kill the two hours his flight was delayed? Brad would have some highly offensive – and highly amusing – commentary to offer when he learned that Nate was stranded in a red state.

"You know you're below the Mason-Dixon Line when there's a biscuit stand in the airport," he said instead of hello. Might as well hit the ground running.

Except there was a pause at the other end of the line, and then Bryan Patterson said, "Nate, you don't know what I'd do for a biscuit from Tudor's right now."

Nate was suddenly glad he was sitting down. He and Bryan talked sometimes, but it was pretty fucking unlikely that Recon's battalion XO was calling him from work to shoot the shit. "Bryan. Who? How bad?"

"Take a breath, Nate. Nobody's dead, I promise you. One of your boys fell in the sand and scrapped his knees pretty good, that's all. If you can, I'd like it if you baby-sat for a couple of days."

"I didn't know they were playing in the park this week," said Nate, following Bryan's lead. He breathed deeply, in and out, as the rush of adrenaline fell off. Brad had been wounded in Iraq. Minor injuries, probably just a flesh wound, but as far as Nate knew, Brad at Pendleton this week, teaching a scuba course to potential Recon Marines.

"We let them out after dark for a change," said Bryan easily.

Right, a black op.

"It's not serious enough for me to keep him inside: he'd just whine his ass off and the nanny would slap him silly."

Nate laughed. If Bryan could make jokes like that, than Brad really was fine. "And so you're going to foist him off on me? And here I thought we were friends."

"I think you might be the only person on the planet who can get him to mind his manners, Nate. I'm not asking your secret; I don't want to know how to make him behave, I just want to be sure he doesn't do something stupid like play on the jungle gym or get dirt in his band-aids. He might have a nickname, but he's not a superhero."

"It's all in how you distract him," Nate said, unable to resist. "I'm in Huntington, Bryan. I'll change my flight, but I'm not going to be able to get there tonight."

"Tomorrow morning will be soon enough. The boys aren't going to be home for a while yet, and still have to have a chat with their godparents about playing nicely with others." Bryan laughed. "And, hey, Nate? I sure would love one of those biscuits."

*

"No plane took off from Kirkuk. No plane landed in Oceanside. No First Recon casualties have been reported for that time period. According to Iranian intelligence, there was no suspicious border activity that day – their three border guards died in a friendly fire training accident. Nobody in Tehran is willing to explain why they were training with live ammunition." Reynolds ticks his points off on his fingers. He shakes his head and looks at Nate for a minute, like he's waiting for Nate to say something.

Nate made his cigarette last, and he takes another drag. He meets Reynolds' gaze but offers nothing in return. Reynolds nods, as if to himself, and then smiles smugly. "According to just about everybody I ask, there's no story. Certainly not an international incident. And yet, here I am, with all these pictures. Pictures of you, and your Sergeant, and his men. I'm not quite sure what to do with them." He butts out his cigarette and takes out another photograph. "Maybe you have some suggestions?"

This one is much more recent. It was taken this morning, at zero-dark hundred. He and Brad are dressed in running gear, again, and leaving the Washington Park Hyatt, where they stayed last night.

Nate stubs his cigarette out on the wall behind him. "Have you thought about scrapbooking?" he asks. "You've got quite an imagination: I'm sure you could do nice things with a bit of pretty paper and a good pair of scissors." He nods at Reynolds. "I have a talk to give. Nice to meet you."

*

The shower's running when Nate gets back to the hotel room. Brad had said he was going to work out in the hotel's weight room after he visited some of his guys at Walter Reed. Nate's timing is just about perfect.

He doesn't bother announcing himself, just kicks off his shoes and strips off his clothes. Their suite has a stall shower built for two as well as a sunken tub – the Georgetown Law Student Society clearly has some wealthy alumni. When he opens the bathroom door he hears Brad singing. "In a New York minute, everything can change," he croons. "In a New York minute, things can get pretty strange."

Nate pulls open the shower door and gets in, looking Brad over. All the bandages had come off four days ago, and his wounds are healing nicely. "Sounds like you're singing my song today."

Brad smiles at him, a lazy, slow smile, and raises soapy hands to Nate's waist, tugging him under the spray for a kiss. "You've been smoking," he says after a minute, licking lazily at Nate's mouth. "Filthy habit, Nate. If you need to satisfy your oral fixation, I've got something you can put in your mouth that's much more pleasurable for everybody concerned."

Nate reaches down and strokes Brad's soft cock. "Some people would argue that's the filthy habit," he says lightly. "Like those guys who wrote the Uniform Code of Military Justice."

"Those guys are the biggest cocksuckers of us all," Brad says, stepping back and looking at Nate. "What happened today?"

Brad might not be a superhero, but his sixth sense is truly remarkable. Nate pulls him closer, and with the water rushing about them, muffling their conversation, quietly tells him about the encounter with Reynolds, the pictures, the implicit threat to Brad because of Nate.

When he's done, Brad's eyes are dark with anger and his mouth is a straight line, serious and unhappy. "Will you let me take care of this?" he asks, uncharacteristically terse.

Nate nods, looking Brad in the eye. Brad nods back, and for a minute they hold each other's gaze. Nate breaks the silence by kissing Brad again.

"After we shower," he says. "I want you to wash this day off me." He bites at Brad's shoulder.

Brad relaxes. "I'd be more than happy to clean you from head to foot. Should I start with my tongue, or finish with it, sir?" He licks a line up the tendons in Nate's neck, and Nate shivers.

"I trust your judgment, Staff Sergeant. In all matters." He puts weight on his last words, and Brad pauses and nods once more, before biting down in the hollow of Nate's throat, his teeth gentle.

Nate braces himself against the tile as Brad drops to his knees, hot water sluicing over both of them. Later, Brad will make a call and everything Mark Reynolds calls proof will disappear.

Once, Nate was sure he believed in ideals like freedom of the press, in absolute truths, in the public's right to know. But then he went to war. Now, he can't remember what peacetime had been like, can't remember a time he wouldn't do anything and everything to protect his men. In this war, he can't always tell the bad guys from the good guys, but he knows he's always on Brad's side. It's enough.

He rests his hand on Brad's right shoulder, next to the jagged scar forming there. Those pictures will be burned, records will be sealed, more lies will be told. Three kilometers behind enemy lines, his men were wounded, other men had been killed, and scars and burns like this will soon be the only remnants of the truth of what happened that night.

No plane took off, no plane landed.


End file.
